SPRING HAD SPRUNG, and it was glorious! The days grew longer and warmer and were filled with the sounds and smells of spring. Our crowd stopped hibernating in hallways and people’s houses and returned to the park wall, where we could appreciate the main event of spring—the return of the baseball season.
The boys’ team, the Royals, played official games every Saturday, but even at other times there was always something going on in the park. There were impromptu baseball games that sometimes included the girls as well; there was handball or racquetball, basketball or gymnastics on the parallel bars. Spring felt like coming alive all over again.
This was the first time I had ever had a boyfriend to share the joys of the season with. Lenny loved the warm weather and the outdoors as much as I did, and he said that seeing it through my eyes made him appreciate it even more.
One day we took a walk together to Ft. Tryon Park. We sat on a wall overlooking a flower garden bursting with color. It was so beautiful there, inhaling the scent of the flowers, feeling the gentle spring breezes and the warmth of the sun on our faces. I felt so peaceful and serene.
I noticed that, without thinking, Lenny was pulling on some ivy that grew on the wall.
“Oh, Lenny, be careful! If you pull off the little suckers, the ivy can’t grow right. After all, it’s a living thing—look at all the tiny little leaves struggling to grow. When you think about it, we don’t really know if plants have feelings, too.”
“Have feelings? Plants?” He turned to me and smiled. “Only you could come up with a statement like that, Linda. I like it when you’re soft and tender that way. It makes me feel calmer inside myself. When we’re together like this. I can forget about stuff like my parents and school. My insides can stop churning for a little while at least.”
I looked into his eyes and smiled back. It made me feel great to have Lenny think of me this way. If only I could always be the way he wanted me to be—calm, sweet, serene, easygoing, and together. It was what I wanted not only for Lenny, but for myself.
Unfortunately, I still wasn’t always able to react the way I wanted to. I still had this tendency to get hurt easily; I still said and did the wrong thing at times, and I still had this terrible temper. When I lost it, trouble was bound to follow.
This particular trouble began on a gorgeous day, right before Easter vacation. School had let out early, and Lenny had told me the night before we would take a walk down the drive by the Hudson River. It was a perfect place to appreciate the beauty of nature and a perfect place to make out.
Unfortunately, events caused Lenny to change his plans for the day. It seemed that Chris Berland had caught Tony Hall trying to steal some money from him. Chris had promptly challenged Tony to a fight, and the boys were all worked up about it.
“Chris is big and strong, but Tony is fast and used to street fighting,” Lenny told me. “This is going to be some match! I can’t wait to see Chris smash Tony’s face in and bloody his nose!”
“Ugh! How can you even talk that way?” I grimaced. “As if it’s fun to watch someone beat someone else up and see blood. I think it’s disgusting!”
“You would,” he answered. “You have no sense of excitement, no appreciation of the skill and finesse involved in a good fight. Well, you don’t have to come with me to watch it if you don’t want to.”
“Don’t have to come with you? What do you mean, Lenny? Didn’t you promise to come somewhere with me? To walk down Riverside Drive this very afternoon?”
“Oh. I guess I forgot.” Lenny’s face fell, then picked up again. “But we can walk down the drive any afternoon, Linda. We have all of vacation in front of us. This fight, however, is a one-time thing. If I don’t go see it now, it’ll be over without me.”
This got me angry. How could Lenny cast aside a promise to me so easily? I was looking forward to this afternoon with him. With New York weather you could never tell. It could be nice today and then rain the entire vacation. You had to take advantage of each nice day you got. And here he was going ahead and ruining this one—and over something stupid like a dumb old fight!
“If you don’t come with me now, it’s our relationship that will be over.” I said this automatically, without giving thought to my words.
Lenny didn’t like this at all. “Oh yeah? Are you giving me an ultimatum?”
“Call it what you want, Lenny Lipoff. You promised you’d take me down the drive, and now you’re going back on your word.”
Lenny made one more effort to convince me. “Look, Linda. That was before I knew about this fight. Why don’t you come with me? If it’s over fast we might still have time to go down the drive. If not, we’ll go tomorrow. Be flexible!”
But the thought of a fight’s being more important to Lenny than my feelings was absolutely infuriating to me. “There’s no way that I’m going to have anything to do with that kind of violence,” I said. “If you won’t come down the drive with me, I’ll just have to go by myself.”
“Suit yourself.” Lenny shrugged and walked toward the park, where the fight was scheduled to take place.
I stormed off, full of rage. How could Lenny be so thoughtless? How could he abandon me that way? I was so furious at the way I had been treated that it wasn’t until I had reached the entrance to the walkway down the drive that I hesitated. I knew the drive wasn’t the best place for a girl to be walking on her own. To make matters worse, I spotted a group of four tough-looking boys coming my way. I didn’t want to get into a situation where I could be trapped in the wooded areas down the drive.
I breathed easier as I recognized one of the boys. He was Matty Meagan, who lived down the block from me. He was big and tough, but he never did me any harm.
“What are you doing here by yourself, Linda?” he asked.
“Nothing,” was my initial reply. But I was hurting so badly that before I knew it I was telling Matty what had happened. I told him how inconsiderate Lenny was of me, and how he couldn’t wait to see Chris beat up Tony.
“Oh yeah?” said Matty. “I’d hate to see Tony beaten up myself. He’s hung around with us a few times, and we like him, don’t we, guys?”
“Yeah, we like Tony,” Matty’s three friends answered.
“And your boyfriend sure doesn’t seem to know how to treat you right, does he, guys?”
“No, he sure doesn’t,” said the boys.
I felt good about having people to sympathize with me, even if it was only Matty and his friends. I guess that’s why I went along with his next suggestion.
“Why don’t you take us over to where this fight is supposed to take place, and we’ll see if we can talk some sense into those guys?” asked Matty.
It seemed like a good idea to me. I really didn’t want to go down the drive by myself, anyhow, and if anyone could convince Chris and Tony not to fight it would be Matty and his friends. They were the toughest kids in the neighborhood.
By the time we got to the park, however, the fight already was breaking up. Tony had claimed he had found the money on the floor and didn’t realize it belonged to Chris. He had given the money back, and Chris had let him off with a warning that nothing like that had better happen again.
All the boys froze when they saw me coming accompanied by Matty and his friends. I felt really important to have them with me for support.
But I hadn’t figured on the type of support they had in mind. “Which one is your boyfriend?” Matty asked me as we approached the group. I pointed Lenny out. “Why don’t you go speak to him about being nice to our friend, Tony, and treating Linda right?” he then said to his friend, Spats.
Spats was the biggest and toughest looking of the group. His legs were like tree trunks and his arm muscles bulged. Next to him, Lenny looked like a toothpick.
Spats lumbered over to Lenny and grabbed him by the collar of his jacket. I thought he was going to talk to Lenny, but he began shoving him around. Then, before anyone realized what was happening, Spats pulled back and punched Lenny in the jaw.
This got me so angry that I lost all fear. I ran up to Spats and began pounding on his back. “Get away from him, you big bully! Get away from him!”
Spats whirled around to face me, his face flushed with anger. “Why, you little punk! If you weren’t a girl I’d knock your teeth out!” he threatened. But he let go of Lenny, and that was all that mattered.
“Lenny, Lenny. Are you all right?” I asked anxiously.
Lenny held both hands to his jaw. I could see blood trickling down between his fingers. I felt awful to see him that way.
“I’ll live,” he managed to say.
Matty and his friends took off and left the park. Lenny’s friends gathered around him as if he was some sort of hero. To have taken a beating from Spats and survive was no small feat.
Lenny was in no mood to be worshipped. “I’m okay, I’m okay.” He shook everyone off. “I’m just going home to get some ice to put on my jaw.” He turned and headed toward his house.
I ran after him. “Oh, Lenny. I’m so sorry this happened. I had no idea Spats would hurt you. Really I didn’t!”
Lenny let me accompany him to his house. He allowed me to clean up the blood and make an ice compress to put on his jaw. He listened to my explanation of how I had unloaded my feelings on Matty and his friends and how they had taken it upon themselves to teach him a lesson.
Then he really gave it to me. “So this is all your fault,” he boomed, the rest of his face now as red as his jaw. “As usual, you couldn’t resist running your big mouth. And to whom? Those punk, bully tough guys who don’t know how to handle anything except with their fists. When you talk to the likes of them it’s just like telling them to hit me. And look what happened. I’ve never been in so much pain in my life!”
Lenny was furious at me now. I listened to his tirade about how I was ruled by my emotions and had no common sense and could say nothing to defend myself. How could I when Lenny had suffered so much pain because of me?
Finally, Lenny burned himself out with his yelling. He looked at me, saw the tears that were streaming down my face, and I guessed he realized I was sorry. He gave a deep sigh, and put his arm around me. Careful to avoid his bruised side, I kissed him, trying to show him how much I did love him despite what had happened. He kissed me back, and before we knew what was happening, we were making out with more passion and intensity than we ever had before.
We were so involved in one another that we completely forgot about the time. We didn’t hear his mother coming home from work until her key was already in the door.
When she came in and saw us on the bed, our clothes all disheveled, she was furious. When she saw the bruise on Lenny’s face and listened to his explanation of what had happened with Spats, she was even angrier.
“This relationship is getting entirely out of hand!” she fumed. “You’re too young for all this, and it’s not good for either of you. I don’t want you in my house when I’m not home ever again, Linda. If I find you’ve been here, I won’t hesitate to call your mother immediately. This type of thing can lead to nothing but more trouble, and it’s got to stop!”
If there was a hole somewhere I would have crawled right in it. But I had no choice but to sit there and take Mrs. Lipoff’s wrath. Angry as she was, I knew my own parents would have been even tougher in the same situation.
So I tearfully apologized and promised it would never happen again. I went into the bathroom to comb my hair and straighten up my clothes. I looked at Lenny before I left and was frightened by the hardness in his eyes.
“What’s going to happen to us?” I whispered.
“I don’t know,” he said tersely. “Why don’t we wait and see.”
I could tell by the sound of his voice that it didn’t look good for us.
* * *
Lenny broke up with me the very next day. We were sitting on the steps of my hallway, and he told me he had had a long talk with his mother and decided she was right. We were no good for one another. To continue our relationship would bring us more trouble.
Then he asked for his ring back. In shock, I took it off my neck and handed it to him. This ring that I had become so used to wearing it was almost a part of me—he was taking it back. I couldn’t believe it!
I was already in a very fragile state when this happened. I had been up most of the night thinking about the events of the day and how horribly everything had turned out. I had feared the worst with Lenny, but was in no way ready to accept it.
As I watched him put the ring in his pocket, the reality of what was happening hit me. “No, Lenny, don’t do it!” I actually begged him. “I’ll never do anything like that again—I learned my lesson this time. Don’t go. I love you. I love you so much!”
But Lenny had made up his mind. Nothing I said had any effect on him. “It’s better this way, Linda. Believe me,” was all he said before he turned around and ran out of the building, leaving me there crying on the staircase.
My parents must have heard all the noise we were making in the hallway. They came out and brought me back into the apartment. By this time, I was crying hysterically.
The thought of losing Lenny after all we had gone through together, after the wonderful times we had shared, after all the deep conversations, all the love and understanding, was more than I could bear. Add to that the guilt I felt at having gotten him hit and the embarrassment of having his mother find us in her apartment, and I totally lost control.
I threw myself on the bed and cried. I cried for what we had together and lost. I cried for the future times we would never know. Lenny was the most important thing in the world to me. How could I live without him?
I cried for what seemed like hours. My parents stayed with me the entire time and tried to comfort me. This only added to my feelings of guilt because of all the times I had fought with them over Lenny.
In the midst of my hysterics, I wound up telling my parents everything. I told them about the things I had done and the times I had disobeyed them. I told them how sorry I was and how I hoped they could forgive me.
Surprisingly, my parents didn’t go crazy like I thought they would. “We’re glad you could finally tell us these things, Linda,” my mother said softly. “The important thing is that you learn from this—that you realize this kind of involvement with that boy is detrimental to you. He’s not right for you; he has too many problems. But even if he didn’t, it still wouldn’t be healthy for you to be so preoccupied with him.”
“That boy has become the focus of your life,” my father pointed out. “It’s not good to put so much importance on someone else, especially at this point of your life.”
“There are too many other things that should be important to you,” said my mother. “School, your friends, family, activities you can do without a boy. With that boy, your life was becoming out of balance. It had to end like this, with your getting so hurt. And the last thing we want is to see you hurt.”
“Well—well, it’s too late for that,” I sobbed. “I don’t know how I can face the future without Lenny. What am I going to do without him?”
“I have faith in you, Linda. I’m sure you’re going to manage.” My mother patted my hand. “But you don’t have to worry about your entire future right now, you know. Just get through each day the best you can, and the future will take care of itself.”
“Okay,” I sniffled. “But how do I get through today? I don’t think I can go out there and face everyone in the crowd in the state I’m in. I just can’t.”
“You don’t have to,” my mother said. “This is Easter vacation. How would you like to take a real vacation and get away from the neighborhood and its problems for a while?”
“Vacation? Where, Ma?”
“You could go out to Long Island and stay with your grandmother, Aunt Ruth, and Uncle Al for a while. You can spend time with your little cousins, Joyce and Iris. That should cheer you up.”
“Stay at Grandma’s?” I repeated. I hadn’t gone to visit my grandmother for ages. In fact, I hadn’t seen anyone in my family for a long time. I felt a twinge of guilt for this neglect. I had always been especially close to my Aunt Ruth and Uncle Al, and my little cousins were adorable. They probably would cheer me up.
“Okay,” I smiled through my tears. “Call up Grandma and see if you can arrange it. I want to go as soon as possible.”
* * *
That very afternoon I found myself on the Long Island Railroad, heading out to Grandma’s. I had talked to Roz, Fran, and Donna before I left to tell them why I wouldn’t be around during Easter. They had all been sympathetic, even Donna, who only rubbed it in once about how she had always told me Lenny was no good for me.
The farther away I got from Washington Heights, the better I felt. The pain was still there, but I didn’t have to concentrate on it. I could concentrate on how nice it would be to have this time to spend with my family.
When I was little, I used to go to Grandma’s a great deal. Since I was her first grandchild, I was special to her. Aunt Ruth and Uncle Al didn’t have any children then, so I was special to them, too. When my cousin Joyce came along, she came to look at me almost as a big sister, but I never fought with her the way I did with my brothers. Cousin Iris was still a baby and really adorable. I did love to go to Grandma’s, where everyone made me feel good all the time.
Uncle Al picked me up at the station and lifted me high into the air as if I was still a little girl. “Hello, stranger. Good to see you,” he laughed.
“Linda’s here! Linda’s here!” Blond, blue-eyed Joyce came flying out of the house when she saw I had arrived. Aunt Ruth and Grandma gave me hugs, and baby Iris clapped her hands joyfully. She had gotten so big since I had seen her last, I could hardly believe it.
The house was filled with the wonderful smell of baking. “Cookies. I made them in your honor.” Grandma smiled.
I hugged her in appreciation. Sometimes it amazed me what my grandmother could do. Her hands and feet were so crippled by arthritis that it was hard for her to walk or pick up things. Even so, she managed to do things like knit sweaters and bake cookies and take care of little Iris, and it was all done with love.
There was so much love for me in my grandmother’s house that I felt tears come to my eyes. I didn’t deserve it. There were many times I could have come to see my family over the last nine months, but I chose to be with Lenny instead. No one seemed to hold it against me. It was great to be loved so unconditionally.
That loving feeling got me through the week. Aunt Ruth and Uncle Al planned all sorts of activities for Joyce and me. One day we went bowling, another day to a little amusement park, still another to the movies. We barbecued in the back yard, something I never got to do in the city.
Grandma told me stories of what it was like for her as a little girl living in Europe. She had had a very hard life. Her mother had died when she wasn’t much older than Joyce. She had lived through illness, poverty, and war. She had been left a widow when her children were still young. And her arthritis brought her pain every day.
Listening to her made me put my problems into perspective. As painful as my breakup with Lenny was for me, I still had it pretty good. I had parents who cared for me, friends I liked, good health, and the opportunity to grow up and be whatever I decided to be.
Grandma made me understand my parents a lot better, too. She told me how my father worked so hard at a job he didn’t like so our family could have what we needed. She pointed out how my mother always put her children first, too.
“I know you think your parents are too strict and too demanding sometimes, Linda. But you have to remember they’ve been around longer than you have. They’ve learned from experiences similar to what you’re going through and would like to keep you from making mistakes and getting hurt. All parents want that for their children.”
She sighed when she said that, and I wondered if she was thinking of mistakes she had made in her life.
“I understand, Grandma,” I said. “But parents can’t always keep their children from making mistakes. Sometimes people only learn from going through a bad experience.”
“That’s true.” She reached out and brushed away the hair that was falling in my eyes with her crippled hand. “And I hope that while you’re here you’ll do a lot of thinking about what you can learn from your experiences.”
That’s exactly what I did do. Joyce was ten and a half, an age where she was first starting to have some interest in boys, and every night she asked me to tell her about what it was like going with Lenny. I told her stories starting way back when we were first going together. I told her about all the ups and downs, the good times, and the fights and breakups. I told her how bad I felt because I thought this time it was going to be for good.
I don’t know how much Joyce understood, but it was good for me to talk about it. It helped me to look at the whole picture of my relationship with Lenny. It helped me to see how obsessed I had become with him. I had wanted to fix him, change him, make him better, keep him from making what I saw as mistakes in his life.
I saw now that I couldn’t do it. If parents couldn’t make everything better for their own children, how could I possibly expect to do it for Lenny?
I had to let go of him and start going on with my own life.